Some examples might be:
What was the reason for the confederacy to declare independence.
What were General E Lees motivations for joining the war.
What was the motivation for most soldiers (who were not slave owners) joining the war.
You can find hundreds of books disputing these topics.
I'll be blunt: this didn't happen. They never fact checked a post about a confederate general, and if they did it was over some kind of obviously false thing that wouldn't be controversial.
Edit: OK, I found a situation: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jun/12/facebook-p...
tl;dr: Facebook put a fact check warning on a piece that claimed in isolation that "Lee opposed both secession and slavery" without mentioning the fact that he led the confederate army in war against the United States or that he personally owned slaves. That seems about right to me.
I would argue that this is clearly in the realm of interpretive history.
The core statement "Lee opposed both secession and slavery" is too poorly defined to have an objective answer. It is a question of what a historical figure thought and felt comes with all the nuance of a real human being.
Part of what I object to with the "fact checking" is that it often tries to adjudicate questions that are matter of opinion. Perhaps "oponion" should be the facebook flag.
Does placing the warning imply that the inverse is true and "Lee supported both secession and slavery".
... ?
Doesn't the burden of factuality go the OTHER way though? It's an objective-sounding statement of what purports to be a fact. But it's belied by other obvious facts about the man's life. It makes him sound like a union abolitionist and not a slave-holding confederate, which is misleading.
I suppose you might (barely) get away with similar statements. For example "Lee opposed secession prior to the war, and claimed to oppose slavery later in life." That still leaves out context, but at least hints at its existence.
> Does placing the warning imply that the inverse is true and "Lee supported both secession and slavery".
No, it does not. But other statements might be: "Lee owned other human beings" is a clearly factual statement. "Lee fought against the United States" is another.
I totally agree that "Lee owned other human beings" and "Lee fought against the United States" are factual statements, and could be fact checked. So could statements that "Prior to the war, Lee wrote that slavery was evil" and "Both Lee and Lincoln would be considered a racist by modern standards, and had very similar opinions on slavery."
I agree that facts can lead readers to misinterpretations. Given how hard it is to verify actual facts, I don't think it should be Facebook's job protect readers from facts which are accurate, but could lead to undesirable world views.
In this instance, one group clearly wants to paint Lee as a moral man trying to navigate the political and economic realities of the antebellum south. Another group clearly wants to paint a picture of Lee as a symbol of southern racism and oppression. These are interpretations of history.
Of course not. Because you know the context and have made your own decision to excuse his slave holding and treason when deciding whether he should be celebrated with giant statues. Which is your call to make, I guess.
But the point is that not everyone knows that context. And for those who don't, this advertisement, which is designed to affect public policy, is prima facie misleading because it presents two facts that are (at best) subjects of controversy.
You'd never allow this about other stuff you care about. Imagine a Facebook story with "The constitution gives you no right to own an assault rifle". Equally true, by your standards. Not really acceptable though, right?
> In this instance, one group clearly wants to paint Lee as a moral man trying to navigate the political and economic realities of the antebellum south. Another group clearly wants to paint a picture of Lee as a symbol of southern racism and oppression. These are interpretations of history.
And Facebook wasn't labeling considered interpretations. It was labeling something that looked like a fact. I don't think it's so heavy a burden for those who want to write a defense of Lee not to engage in the kind of spin in that story, is it?
Ignoring the ad hominem, the context I had was the fact Lee was a confederate general and the article you linked. I approached it with skepticism, eg this is a nebulous and unverifiable claim. You it approached it assuming an uncharitable interpretation.
>But the point is that not everyone knows that context. And for those who don't, this advertisement, which is designed to affect public policy, is prima facie misleading because it presents two facts that are (at best) subjects of controversy.
This is only prima facie misleading if you ascribe to a specific interpretation and the facts challenge this this interpretation. You are starting backwards with a subjective opinion and then defining facts that do not lead to the same conclusion, as problematic. However, you will allow them if they are accompanied by enough additional facts for the reader to come to the same subjective interpretations as you.
My entire point is that if we want to control misinformation, limiting the presentation of "incomplete" fact patterns is a step too far.
>Imagine a Facebook story with "The constitution gives you no right to own an assault rifle". Equally true, by your standards. Not really acceptable though, right?
I have no problem with this. It looks like the title to 100 other garbage opinion pieces.
>And Facebook wasn't labeling considered interpretations. It was labeling something that looked like a fact.
Then it should be more careful to discern between verifiable facts and statements that look like facts.
This was a post about a topical issue of public policy. Not Lee the man of 1865, but whether or not to remove a statue of Lee in 2020. Isn't that exactly the kind of thing that Facebook's fact check policy is designed to regulate?
You aren't allowed to lie (though to be fair this was a lie of omission) to influence a contemporary policy debate, and if you do they'll put a warning on your post that points to a clearer exposition of the truth.